Last night, at a voluntary committee meeting, my lips moved, my voice was loud, and I pronounced the “answer” to the committee’s problems. Motormouth Mark had again achieved the dubious honour of being a “mastermind” — that is, someone whose ego and voice are louder than anyone wants to hear. “Mastermind” is not a term [...]
Fairness, fixed bids and construction marketing
In this week’s Construction Marketing Ideas newsletter, I’ll follow up on last week’s story where I discussed an ethical challenge that pitted the values of relationships and marketing against fairness in the fixed bid space. As I thought, the well-presented views of several readers diverged: Where, after all, does fairness end and marketing begin? The [...]
Trust
Yesterday morning, I walked up to a door outside an old house in Ottawa to be greeted by three exceptionally black people. After a few minutes conversation, I handed my passport and $100 cash to one of the individuals outside the house, and walked back to my car. No receipt. No paperwork. Just trust. Now, [...]
The renovator-writer’s blog
As the 2012 Best Construction Marketing blog competition is in its final days, I’ll introduce a blog which I think is a great candidate for the 2013 competition: Kip de Moll’s The Artisan Builders Workshop. I first discovered this blog through a reference in the LinkedIn Construction Marketing Ideas group, where Kip introduced a thread [...]
Questioning assumptions
We’re human. Sometimes, no, often, we assume some cause is the basis of our challenges when the real circumstance may be quite different — or the assumption may only be partially correct. Of course, as marketers sometimes we play to this flaw and create mental images in our clients’ perspectives which cause them to “think” [...]
Bragging rights
Bragging rights are strange things in construction marketing. We are told that humility is wise, that respect for others is important, and that the most important thing we can do is to give and share rather than broadcast a laundry list of achievements. Undeniably, these points are correct, especially if we are tempted to brag [...]
The colonoscopy
In a few hours, I’ll be heading to the hospital for a procedure far removed from this blog’s primary topic, but which now demands my body and mind’s fullest attention. The colonoscopy, of course, is probably one of the more intrusive medical tests, requiring a preparation procedure which could invite a degree of personal embarrassment. [...]
“Homeless Hotspots” and other “cause media”
I don’t know quite what to make of this — a business has set up a network of “homeless hotspots” at SWSX in Austin, TX, purportedly to draw attention to the plight of the homeless, but maybe to draw attention to the business. Exploitation? Or creative marketing to raise the awareness of the technology leaders [...]
Rules and rule-bending in construction marketing
In a recent posting, I described how we are creatures of habit, and how hard it is to break or change our own routines (let alone anyone else’s). Similarly, businesses — both our own and our business-to-business clients, also operate within rules, procedures and standard expectations. We may have these rules tightly codified into policy [...]
Are we creatures of habit?
I’m supposed to be a somewhat daring, risk-taking entrepreneur. Yet, yesterday I realized how much most of my day-to-day routine is based on repetition and habit. So much of life, it seems, is built on repeated behavior, comfortable in its predictability. Of course, habits are both the strength and weaknesses of successful businesses. Once we’ve [...]